World Championship: Campaign for Anand

10/27/2013 – The banner on the side of the campaign truck says it all. It is cruising Chennai collecting signatures in support of the World Champion, a son of the city. Meanwhile newspapers have been sounding a more optimistic note on his chances against challenger Magnus Carlsen, who is 95 point higher on the rating list. The Times of India reports that GM Abhijeet Gupta forsees Anand triumphing.

Everyone uses ChessBase, from the World Champion to the amateur next door. Start your personal success story with ChessBase 14 and enjoy your chess even more!

Along with the ChessBase 14 program you can access the Live Database of 8 million games, and receive three months of free ChesssBase Account Premium membership and all of our online apps! Have a look today!

Signature Campaign For Anand's Victory

The New Indian Express which is the media partner for the World Chess Championship
from November 7-28 at Chennai started a signature campaign wishing the world
champ Viswanathan Anand all the best for the 12-game match. Hundreds of
people signed on the board wishing Anand best of luck for the upcoming match
against Magnus Carlsen of Norway next month.

Among those who signed the board were the World Championship Director D.V.
Sundar (left in brown shirt), V. Hariharan (left middle), Honorary Secretary
of the All India Chess Federation, and Vice President of FIDE of Chennai
and AICF Chief Executive Officer Bharat Singh Chauhan of Delhi (left in
jeans).

The campaign vehicle went around Chennai city
collecting signatures wishing Anand luck in the match

Those who had come for business to the Tamil Nadu State Chess Association
and the All India Chess Federation were among the early signatories. Sportsmen
from other games also stood in line to sign and wish Anand all the best
for the match.

Anand and Carlsen was currently in their last phase of training at undisclosed
locations with undisclosed trainers. What they are looking at will determine
the course and to a large extent the result of the match. What is significant
is that Magnus Carlsen was part of the Anand training team of 2008 when
the Indian defeated Vladimir Kramnik at Bonn. Many of the leading players
are working for either of the players and naming them in any report will
only make it speculative. Peter H Nielsen, recent main trainer for Anand
and Carlsen has decided to stay away from both camps.

The organisers, Tamil Nadu State Chess Association, are expecting a massive
impact for the game in the city. All the seats are expected to be taken
for all the days by the time the opening ceremony decides who will take
which colour in the first game on November 9 at Hyatt Regency.

Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa (above left on the campaign vehicle) will
do the lots to decide the colours of the players. Tamil Nadu Government
is the sponsor for this mega event which has a budget of Rs. 29 Crores (290
million Rupees = 3.4 million Euros = 4.7 million US Dollars).

The campaign "All The Best Vishy" is going to create greater
awareness for the game in the cricket hungry nation. The event will be inaugurated
on Nov 7 evening at the Nehru Indoor Stadium in Chennai. It will only be
the fourth time that the world title match is taking place in Asia and the
first time in 13 years.

Press reports

"It will be a very intense match and Anand's experience in such events
should come in very handy," said Gupta. Anand has played against the
likes of Garry Kasparov of Russia his compatriot Anatoly Karpov and more
recently against another Russian Vladimir Kramnik, Bulgarian Veselin Topalov
and Israeli Boris Gelfand to fight for the world title. The last three matches
have been the high point of Anand's career taking him from the category
of great players to legends of the game. "Anand has established himself
as an all round player, winning the world championship in knockout, match-tournament
and matches. Carlsen undoubtedly is the most worthy challenger but one needs
nerves of steel for such matches," Gupta said.

Citing the qualification Candidate's tournament that Carlsen won by the
skin of the teeth, Gupta said Carlsen can fumble when put under pressure.
On the likely outcome, the latest Arjuna awardee was quite candid: "It
will be a very close affair surely. I guess the first half will be important
from Anand's perspective, Carlsen will be full of energy in those games
and mostly will come down guns blazing. In the second half it won't be so
simple for Carlsen, that's why matches are so difficult," Gupta noted.

While the top players are hardly intimidated by rating differences, for
the layman the gap between ratings (95) seems too much in favour of Carlsen.
The 2870 (highest ever) rating has come from some phenomenal results and
says a lot about Carlsen’s ability to play for a victory in all situations.
The stamina, ability to calculate, to play very long games, tiring out opposition,
almost hypnotising opponents into making mistakes have been crucial to his
stupendous success. And going by current form, the Norwegian holds a definite
edge over Anand. It’s almost an intriguing that the five-time world
champion Indian starts an underdog against someone half his age.

Grandmaster Parimarjan Negi is probably right in his assertion, “I
would trust a coin-toss more than any predictions.”

In the tournament format, you need to be ahead of many opponents; and hence
a draw can force you to lag behind in the standings. But in a two-player
match, the draw keeps you on an even keel, enhancing its value further.
Anand's strategy could well be based on safety-first approach. After winning
the Candidates tournament in London earlier this year, Carlsen had said:
"The difference is, I'm winning tournaments and Anand is holding on
to this title. It will be an interesting clash between these two ideas as
to what constitutes the best player in the world."

But Carlsen can't afford to take Anand lightly. Vladimir Kramnik too had
questioned the validity of Anand's title through tournament format won in
2007. However, after losing to Anand, his views changed dramatically. "In
the last 5-6 years, Anand has made a qualitative leap that has made it possible
to consider him one of the great chess players. Perhaps, it doesn't look
like that to observers, but when you play against him you sense what a great
range he has," Kramnik said.

See also

12/30/2017 – The "King Salman World Blitz & Rapid Championships 2017" in Riyadh from Decemer 26th to 30th. At the half way point of the Blitz Championship, the defending champ Sergey Karjakin leads with 9 / 11. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is a half point back followed by Peter Svidler and a trio of Chinese: Wang, Ding and Yu on 8 / 11. In the Women's Pia Cramling has a full point lead with 9½ / 11. Watch live with Rounds 11 to 22 from 12:00 Noon CET (6:00 AM EST) on Saturday with commentary by E. Miroshnichenko & WGM K. Tsatsalashvili.

See also

12/6/2017 – Imagine this: you tell a computer system how the pieces move — nothing more. Then you tell it to learn to play the game. And a day later — yes, just 24 hours — it has figured it out to the level that beats the strongest programs in the world convincingly! DeepMind, the company that recently created the strongest Go program in the world, turned its attention to chess, and came up with this spectacular result.

Video

The introductory position of the Kasparov Gambit can occur after 1 d4,1 Nf3 and 1 c4, which can appeal to a wide range of players. The usual move order is 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 c5 3 Nf3 cxd4 4 Nxd4 e5!? 5 Nb5 d5 6 cxd5 Bc5 bringing us to a very sharp position. On this 60 mins, FIDE Senior Trainer Andrew Martin argues the case from the Black side, showing both classic Kasparov masterpieces and games from the present day and suggests that White's defensive task is not easy. This is a practical gambit which will help players at all levels to win more games. It is ideal for must-win situations with Black. It is a gambit that White cannot decline,as if he does, Black gets a good position instantly. White must take up the cudgels and fight!